Sometimes When You Lose, You Win: by Devi Laskar

"medical venus" by devi laskar
“medical venus” by devi laskar

I’m not new to the computer, and I’m not new to moving files from one “place” on the computer to the other. I’ve been working on a computer and moving things for years, even decades.

Yet accidents happen. I accidentally erased a lot of my work recently, as I moved it from one place to another and although I’d backed up my files, and placed copies of my work on other drives, I still could not find what I’d been working on.

After the initial panic and then a series of anxiety attacks, I only calmed down when a more tech-savvy mind than mine showed me how to find a copy of what I’d lost – and to “cut and paste.” It is going to be a long and tedious process, and it will no doubt eat in to the hours of my winter break. But I’m oh so grateful that I even have the opportunity to get back some of what I’ve lost, a good eight and a half months’ worth.

Still, there were a few hours that I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t see my work again, and I tried to remember what I had lost. And that’s when I won something good. I remembered a few things, and I wrote them down, and then I remembered a few more things. A pattern emerged of the things I remembered and then I rearranged these memories and I used them to give my protagonist this exact problem: losing something precious, being uncertain of recovery, wondering what the consequences will be.

And from this my outline emerged and now I have the starving skeleton of an outline for my new novel. I know the beginning and I know the end. Now I have to find something to fatten up the middle of the story like Santa’s belly, and I’m good to go.

1 thought on “Sometimes When You Lose, You Win: by Devi Laskar”

  1. Think you survived every writer’s worst nightmare. Nice to know a person can continue in their writing life. I always remember Hemingway who left a full manuscript on the train. There’s a lesson for all of us in your missive.

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